3 Steps to Pricing Crochet for Profit: Guest Post by Sedruola Maruska

Sedruola Maruska is the blogger and designer at Yarn Obsession – where the tagline is “Crochet for Financial Freedom” – love that! Sedie designs lovely crochet patterns, but she also focuses on crochet business development. Whether you have a budding etsy business, Facebook fan page, or a part time craft fair gig, Sedie is full of great information to help you out! With prime craft fair and holiday selling season coming up fast, Sedie has put together a fantastic post for Moogly fans to help you get the most for your yarn work!

If you’re here on Moogly that means you have a love of crochet and possibly a desire to sell the crochet you make, that’s awesome! My name is Sedie and my mission is help many crochet enthusiasts become successful business owners by Pricing Crochet for Profit! When I decided to start selling crochet pieces in 2008 the number one question I had was, “How do I price this?” Since that time I’ve learned a lot about what goes into pricing that I’d like to share with everyone I meet, so I wrote a book. The book “Pricing Crochet Fairly for Maximum Profit” was written because I couldn’t talk to every crocheter out there, but I wanted to deliver a tool that would help crocheters determine the best price for their business and profit margin.

The number one question I still hear when others begin their crochet business journey is, “How much should I charge for _____?” So, to get you started, I want to give you 3 basic steps to pricing crochet for profit that will help you start seeing pricing as a process, and hopefully help you decide on a fair price for you and your customers.

1) Know your basics – The first step is know the basics as they pertain to your crochet business. You need to know exactly what it is you’re selling and who you’re selling to. Moogly is a great resource for patterns that allow you to make and sell complete items. We aren’t all designers so having patterns that we can use is invaluable. However, it isn’t enough to say that you’re selling scarves to anyone that wants and needs one, you need to narrow it down. It needs to be very specific such a “I’m selling 100% alpaca made luxury scarves to upper-middle class women between the ages of 30 – 50 who want luxury items in their wardrobe and are willing to pay for it.” When you get that specific about what you’re selling and who you’re selling to it makes the task of pricing much easier.

2) Know your venue – Where are you going to be selling your crochet? If you’ll be selling at a juried craft fair your pricing will be lot different than if you’re selling at a flea market. The audience you’ll be presenting to will also be very different. If you know that you want to sell the alpaca scarf then you should find the right venue where your ideal customer will be so she’ll be able to see your scarf and buy it.

3) What are your costs – Finally, in order to properly price any piece you are selling, you must first know your costs. What are the costs you incur on a monthly basis to keep your business going? When someone asks me what I would charge for any particular piece, I know what I would charge because I know what my costs are, but I don’t know theirs. That’s why it’s so hard to tell someone what they should charge for anything they make. Knowing what costs you have (fixed and variable) will help you put it all into the pricing so you are not cheating yourself out of your profits.

Like I said, pricing crochet is not easily done in a vacuum. Once you begin to really think about the points listed, you’ll start to see that if you want to create a business selling your crochet pieces, there has to be some thought put into everything that surrounds your business and what the ] price of each item will mean to you. ] Because it is my mission to help crochet business owners create a true pricing structure, I will be hosting a webinar on October 29, 2013 entitled “How to Price Crochet Like a Pro” that will later be available as an on-demand course. The main focus of the webinar is to delve into the mindset and then to change that mindset to realize we deserve to generate a profit for our work.

There are also some free resources online to help you start working on pricing your crochet for profit which you can find in this article “Pricing Crochet Pieces for Sale Online and Beyond”. Creating a crochet business is fun and exciting, but it’s easy to get burnt out when you don’t see a profit from the work you do or when the people you’re offering your pieces to aren’t buying because they aren’t the right audience. My wish for you is that you’ll see the value in what you do, take everything into consideration and price for profit. After all, why be in business?

Thank you so much Sedie! This is excellent advice for anyone who sells their crochet – or knitting for that matter! Be sure to check out Sedie’s site, Yarn Obsession, and get a taste for her design skills with her latest free crochet pattern, the Crochet Popcorn Circle Cowl!

Comments

Thank you so much for the opportunity to write this post for your followers. I know how frustrating it can be to try to price crochet in a vacuum. Once I knew the formulas they really helped me, I hope they help your readers too! Thanks again!

I have a lady making me a crocheted table cloth, she has been buying the materials so I dont know how much she as bought, she is telling me to pay her what I feel it’s worth, it’s a square table cloth 24in x 24in, I need advice on what to pay her!!!

Oh my gosh! Well, generally the advice is 3-4x the cost of materials, but thread is cheap and very time consuming, so that formula goes out the window for that! My best advice would be to look for similar items on Etsy and see what they are charging to get an idea of where the market is. 🙂